Genomatica, a San Diego company that’s developed a green technology for chemical production, has filed with federal regulators for an initial public stock offering.

The firm, which has corralled about $80 million in venture capital and up to $5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, didn’t say how much it hopes to raise in its IPO, or when it expects to sell shares, which is typical at the early stages of the process of going public.

But Genomatica has attracted some brand name investment banks as underwriters for the potential stock sale, including Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Piper Jaffray, Raymond James and Jefferies.

The company has developed a microorganism-based technology platform for producing chemicals used in industrial production. The platform uses biomass, plants or other renewable, non-petroleum sources as the base material to produce chemicals. Today, these chemicals come mostly from crude oil.

The chemicals Genomatica aims to produce are not household names, but they’re used to manufacture household products. One target is butanediol, which is used in the manufacturing of running shoes, spandex, automotive plastics and electronics.

Genomatica also is developing a fermentation-based system to produce butadiene, which is used to make tires, carpeting and latex products.

The company also has an agreement with Waste Management to tap gas seeping from landfills to produce chemicals.

Though it has been around since 1998, Genomatica has yet to make a profit. The company reported sales of $726,000 in 2010 and a loss of $14 million. Through the first six months of this year, the company has sales of $1.9 million and a loss of $9 million.

The company has development agreements with partners -- including Tate & Lyle, Novamont, Mitsubishi Chemical and M&G/Chemtex -- to determine if its production process can produce chemicals at a large scale and at competitive prices.